Pyramid King: Overview

Prepare to sweat it out again beneath a blazing sun in this Ancient Egyptian-themed slot, Pyramid King from Pragmatic Play. The name pretty much spells out what’s in store: sand, heat, and plenty of old-school slot sensibilities. Don’t go in expecting a ton of surprises.

On top of the familiar setting, players are once again treated to another spin on the ever-popular, endlessly recycled ‘Book’ game formula. It isn’t a direct clone, though. Pragmatic has included an extra feature to round things out, giving the game a bit of personality that may suit certain players—or certain moods.

Once it loads, you’re met with the standard 5-reel, 3-row layout framed by pyramids, desert scenery, and bright blue skies. If you’ve tried any Egypt-themed slot before, the backdrop will feel instantly recognizable. The soundtrack is one of the stronger points, running a jazzy Arabic-style tune through the base game and building up during the bonus. Oddly, bigger wins are celebrated with a burst of very un-Egyptian cancan-like music, which is admittedly strange. Still, the end result feels lively, with a clear land-based slot atmosphere.

Available on all devices with stakes from 25 p/c up to $/€125 per spin, the game includes 8 standard pay symbols split evenly between higher and lower values. The low symbols are J-A royals dressed up with small Egyptian-themed details like pharaoh motifs. Higher pays come from classic Egyptian imagery such as Ankhs, snakes, rings, and Anubis. The jackal-headed god is the top payer, awarding 20 times your stake for five of a kind. For a ‘Book’ slot, the paytable leans on the lower side, which may affect whether it’s your kind of game.

Using 25 paylines, Pyramid King offers more than double the line count you’d usually see in traditional ‘Book’ slots. Wins require at least three matching symbols, landing left to right on adjacent reels starting from the leftmost reel. The pharaoh symbol supports this as the wild. It pays the same as the premium Anubis symbol and can also substitute for any regular symbol to complete winning combinations. The wild can appear anywhere on the reels.

Before diving in headfirst, it’s worth considering the underlying math. On startup, Pragmatic Play’s lightning bolt meter shows a 3.5/5 rating, which the developer labels as medium volatility. The other key number is RTP, set at a respectable 96.5%, placing it comfortably around average. That said, the RTP can be notably lower depending on the casino you play at.

Pyramid King: Features

During testing, Pyramid King delivered wins fairly often, though it could still feel grindy at points. The feature set helps even things out, and there’s a little more happening here than in many ‘Book’ style slots. We’ll start with the more unusual feature.

Above the reels you’ll spot the jackpot values available in Pyramid King, which vary based on your stake. There are 3 to win and none are progressive, meaning the prizes are fixed. They are: Minor worth 30 times the stake, Major worth 100 times the stake, and Grand worth 1,000 times the stake.

To land them, you’ll need camel tiles to appear. These act as money symbols, and seeing at least 6 triggers the money respin feature. This kicks in after all line wins have been paid. Regular symbols then disappear, while the triggering money symbols remain locked in place. You receive 3 respins, and every time a new money symbol lands, the respin counter resets back to 3.

Money symbols carry random cash values, or they may display the Minor or Major Jackpots. When the respins end, you’re paid the combined value of the money symbols on screen plus any Minor or Major Jackpots collected. If you succeed in filling the entire grid with 15 money symbols, the Grand Jackpot is awarded.

Rather than a book, the bonus symbol here is a scroll, appearing on reels 1, 3, and 5. Landing all 3 awards a 1x stake payout and triggers 10 free spins. Before the feature begins, one expanding special symbol is chosen at random from the 8 regular pay symbols.

Any time that chosen symbol lands, once standard payouts are resolved, it expands to cover the entire reel. The special symbol pays anywhere, including in non-adjacent positions. If players hit three or more scrolls during the feature, another 10 free spins are added—without any cap.

Pyramid King: Verdict

It’s not always easy to get fired up for yet another ‘Book’ style release, but a fair assessment is still possible. If you’ve played one before, you’ll largely know what you’re getting, and Pyramid King doesn’t really deviate from that formula. Put simply, Pyramid Kind feels like a softer, less lucrative take on John Hunter and the Book of Tut. The symbol payouts are smaller and the math model isn’t as punishing, but you do get money respins and jackpots as an extra layer.

The general feel Pyramid King gives is that of a traditional, land-based machine. Between the visuals, the crisp symbol design, and the accompanying sound effects, it captures the kind of Ancient Egypt slot action you might stumble across in a local arcade.

If you’re specifically craving this type of gameplay, Pyramid King may fit the bill, but don’t expect the same level of excitement as Book of Dead or Book of Ra Deluxe if those are your usual picks. As noted, volatility is much lower, and so are the payouts, which are capped at 1,000 times your stake here with the help of the jackpot, or 200 times your stake for a full screen of the top symbol in the bonus. Overall, there’s nothing especially fresh or must-play here that demands you rush off to try it.